Swap A Smile–Charity Auction

10/10/2011

We as women and mothers delight in the joy of raising our families despite some of the frustrations and effort it takes. We delight in hearing and seeing our children grow and learn, and we strive to put their needs before our own. Their heartaches are OUR heartaches and their joy is OUR joy. So imagine if you had a child who was beautiful and happy in everyway…but who did not have a beautiful outer physical smile to match the beauty of their inner smile?

Every three minutes a child is born with a cleft — often unable to eat, speak, socialize or smile. In some places these children are shunned and rejected. And in too many cases, their parents can’t afford to give them the surgeries they need to live a normal life. Whereas, most of us are blessed to be living in Nations and countries where we have access to basic services and healthcare for our families which is there to help us help our children to lead healthy and normal lives.

We feel that women everywhere have the same basic tendencies to nurture and care for their families and feel that automatically connects us as social beings. A group of us wanted to be able to use this crafting/DIY community and find some way to give back to others, to be involved in something that was bigger than us and our blogs, and do something to actually make a difference in the lives of women and children who are just like us.

Operation Smile is a charity organization healing children’s smiles, one operation at a time.

Operation Smile, is more than a charity organization. They are a mobilized force of medical professionals and caring hearts who provide safe, effective reconstructive surgery for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate. Each operation costs approximately $240.

With this is mind, we created “Swap A Smile” to raise funds through an online auction of DIY and Craft Bloggers’ past projects. We would love for you to join us in our efforts to give back to others who need help. It only takes a little bit to go a long way. Our goal is to be able to give at least 5 children new smiles and help them to live the life they weren’t meant to live.

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We reached out to some various bloggers and asked them to help us out with and unique charity auction to raise funds in hopes to be able to help a few children by giving them a smile.Each of these bloggers have generously agreed to auction off an item that they have made recently and shared with their readers on their individual websites. Below you will see a list of all of the items that are being auctioned off. You can access each item by clicking on the link or the image and you will be redirected to that persons site and the item that they are auctioning off.

The auction will begin immediately and will end on Friday, October 14 at 12:00 pm PST. Each item has been assigned a shipping cost that will be added to the highest bidding price. The item will go to the highest bidder. You can bid on an item by leaving a comment on the individual’s post leaving us your name and the price you are bidding.

If you are not interested in bidding, but would still like to help out, we have also made it so that you can donate any amount to help us out with this great cause! Every little bit helps!

Click here if you would like to donate directly to Swap a Smile!

We will be writing a follow up post and providing everyone with a screen shot of the PayPal account and keep you updated on our progress so you can be sure that your money is really going to support this cause.

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For more information regarding Operation Smile and their mission statement and goals you can read about them on their site OperationSmile.Org.

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I am so excited to be participating in Swap A Smile. I am auctioning off two different items.

About Amy

Amy Huntley is the owner/author of The Idea Room. A mother of five, who enjoys sharing her love of all things creative in hopes of inspiring other women and families. Connect with her on Google+, or read more of her posts.

Comments

How wonderful of you Amy to do this. Our son was born with a cleft lip and palate – we’ve had 5 operations so far and about to begin some more – so I know what these children go though if they are lucky enough to be chosen. Good luck and I hope you raise lot’s of money for this organization.

I am excited to see you putting together this fundraiser – – I have a cleft lip/pallet and so obviously Operation Smile means a lot to me. I am grateful for the reconstructive surgery I was able to receive as a infant/toddler/child and can’t imagine not being able to meet that need. Especially now as a parent, not being able to help your own child would be devastating. Anyways, hope you raise lots of funds towards the cause! – – Mandy, Sugar Bee Crafts

From a long time follower of your blog and the mother of a child who was born with a cleft lip and palate and who has benefited from the loving care and amazing talents of Operation Smile… Thank you all for doing this… It take so little to make a profound difference in a child’s life. My daughter was given a real chance at life because of the good work Operation Smile does all over the world. Our family will forever be grateful and indebted to the wonderful people involved in this amazing organization. Thank you for supporting their work.

What a wonderful way to raise the much needed funds for children in need. Something most of us take for granted…a smile.

I’m not a blogger but avid follower of so many great blogs. I know there is a whole community of people out there just like me. So I’m throwing a challenge out into blogger land. How many of you out can give the gift of 1 great smile and get a terrific keepsake in return? Visit all the sponsors! CAN WE DO IT?

I am bidding $240 (the estimated cost of 1 surgery) for a monogrammed soap dispense, with the letter M of course.

Jennifer! Thanks so much for bidding on the other monogrammed soap. Send me an email and I would love to get it sent out to you. Also let me know what letter you would like. Here is my email. [email protected]

This is such a great idea! We have four bloggers that are planning a linky party for charity, and we are trying to figure out how to have the linky party show up on all four host’s blogs. Do you have any insight on how this is done? We’ve been unable to figure it out. Thank you so much!

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